


rivalry and respect and yadda yadda yadda

by perpetualpoverty (orphan_account)



Category: Gintama
Genre: Banter, Brief Action, F/M, One Shot, Sougo is OOC for like three lines ight I can't kEEP uP wiTH their childISH tsUNDERE behaVIOR guys, Soyo has opinions
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-07
Updated: 2018-01-07
Packaged: 2019-03-01 16:43:00
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,292
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13298967
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/perpetualpoverty
Summary: A Jouishi break-in at the palace and she is agitated at him, as usual.“Why do you even care about it?”“Why do you care about what I think?”





	rivalry and respect and yadda yadda yadda

The halls seemed narrower, especially when a person was being chased by goons looking for a princess’ head. Curves and doors being shoved aside in a too big palace were tiresome, but Kagura kept her pace - damn Jouishi and their agenda, ruining their afternoon tea.

“Soyo-chan, you really need to consider downsizing!” She skidded to turn again, another clear but uncertain path before them. “How much further?”

 In between pants, Soyo yelled back, “Enough that we’ll get there soon.”

 Nodding, Kagura went on.

 When she found the last door, guarded but scarcely, Kagura looked behind her.

 Soyo wasn’t there. Kagura planted her feet, craning her neck this way and that, hoping to spot the familiar adorned, dark hair somewhere nearby. She couldn't have been taken!

 “Soyo!” She made the mistake of shouting and her only exit moved in to battle her. “I don't have time for you political grinches!” Unprepared, Kagura dropped her parasol, ducked, and delivered a blow to the stomach, a kick to the side, and a flip against another man’s jaw opposite to her.

Both men down and disarmed, the floor shook with impeding footsteps.

Gintoki and Shinpachi appeared on the other end, the shogun with Hijikata lagging behind with acute awareness. They were far off to make out their faces, but she heard them distantly.

Hijikata waved, and she waved back, picking up her parasol. “Oi! China brat!”

What's he waving for?

“No, Kagura-chan!” Shinpachi was the closest to the herd of the group, arm outstretched and sight beyond her.

The patriot barely cocked his gun to warn her.

* * *

 One of the side doors burst open, a flash of black, and the entire hall blew to paper bits. Pieces of wood rained down in splinters and smoke fumes billowed from the eye, the perpetrator knocked unconscious, gun scattered far from him.

Okita sighed, ignoring the ringing in his ears and Hijikata spitting his shock. “This is the one time we can't screw around, oi, are you listening to me, Sougo?” His group caught up in the mess, but he pushed him out.

With a boot, he nudged Kagura’s body on the floor. “Get up.” When she didn't, he stepped on her hand, Kagura shooting up, stricken.

She glanced at her arm - shot and the bullet lodged. Okita didn't bother with any courtesy, instead of repeating more urgently, “Get up.”

“Bastard,” she felt dizzy, but knew she'd manage, standing up wobbly, “I don't take orders from you.” Despite her cloudy vision, if she squinted, Shinpachi’s glasses were intact and Gintoki hoisted a knee to stand.

“You might as well have, knowing I wouldn't be careless. What the hell even was that?”

Rubbing her head, she forced herself to glare up menacingly. Her neck became stiffer than a tree trunk from the sudden movement but she held her ground. Why the fuck was he getting mad at her? Did he question her competency? She had to swallow her bone to pick with him before focusing on more important tasks at hand.

“Like it matters! Where’s Soyo anyway? You took her, didn't you?”

“She's fled with Maizo and Imai-san. They pulled her and the shogun into the room behind you.” Kagura blinked. She hadn't considered that. With a quiet sarcasm, Okita drawled, “Now, I don't even get a thank you for that either?”

Kagura recovered. “What’re you yapping on about?” Her question answered itself silently as Okita irately gestured to the knocked out patriots on the floor. Covered in soot and the singed remains.

Her teeth were definitely getting filed shorter the harder she ground her teeth. In all ways he just If he weren't the one looming above her, she would have wrapped her hands around his neck and clenched until he went blue in the face. He didn't have to blow them up!

Shinpachi beat her to her tirade. “YOU RISKED BLOWING US ALL TO HELL FOR THIS?” A moment later, Gintoki slammed his wooden sword across a conscious and attacking patriot, accidentally knocking Shinpachi to the tattered ground, face-first–CRAAACK!

Everyone cringed, muttering that they were all, indeed, officially a man down. Even Hijikata flinched when the sound of glass breaking felt like an eternal echo.

“Kagura, are you okay?” Gintoki entered the torn hall, crossing the wooden and paper rubble, Shinpachi’s collar clenched in his left fist. Kagura stood up, ignoring Okita’s olive branch of a hand. Gintoki’s eyes settled on her arm. She shook her head as if to say, don't sweat it.

“Now that Odd Jobs genius here decided to knock out another ally, we still have the patriots guarding the courtyard. I think it's best if the Shinsengumi takes it from here.”

“Oogushi-kun, you're really a special snowflake, huh?”

“Don't start anything when I'm trying to make things easier for your clan!”

Gintoki lifted Shinpachi, leveling his shoulder against his. “We’re Odd Jobs. There's nothing we can't handle.” Kagura caught his shit-eating grin, placing all of her faith in him as he did with her. He seemed to nod at Okita, a slight gesture signifying his full permission to beat the officer’s bony ass.

“Conniving tax robbers! We ain't finished yet!” Dirt swept up into her face, feet eclipsing right in their path. The person to confront, lifted his gaze to meet hers, stony. “I want him.”

“You’ve got to be kidding me,” Hijikata grumbled.

She didn't care what she said or what it entailed so long as she could lash out at the captain.

“You do understand that you admitted to lusting after me, don’t you?” For some reason, Sougo stood firm and in place, resisting in spite of her tone of challenge. “Now if you'll quit wasting both our times.” He walked past, but Kagura seized his rear shoulder, locking him securely.

“Hey, Toshi,” Kagura ignored his complaints on the nicknames. “I’m taking this one to sacrifice to the remaining patriots outside. Consider him my bitch. I'll bring you the remains ‘kay?” 

* * *

After pummeling patriots with Okita as her springboard or meatshield, when Gintoki found Kagura to reassure the successful surrender of the Jewish faction, even he spared the battered officer a sympathy look. That was until Gintoki started laughing about how “He got beat up by Kagura,” and wouldn’t quit laughing about it until he left the two of them alone in a guardhouse.

Groaning, Okita stood from his seat on the floor. As he shrugged off his jacket to place against a chair, the jacket’s fabric tattered with tears, Okita glared at Kagura, more exasperated than angry.

“Is there a problem?” She folded her arms.

 “China, even I don't go as far as this when I harass you.”

She wasted no time to put him in his place.“What were you yelling at me for earlier? Doing my job?” At his apathy, Kagura stepped closer to him, all waves of warmth aside. “Oh no, you can't cop out on me. You were all pissy that I was ‘careless’ enough to get blown up. By you!”

Kagura clutched her parasol handle tighter than she could stop herself. It stung her more than she could properly admit to him and screaming at his pretty face seemed to be the only viable option at the moment. The only _normal_ one.

 A pause lingered. Okita mused to himself, “Is that what you think I was getting at?”

“There's no other reason!”

“Okay, fine. Just a quick question, how's your arm? Because you haven't been moving it since you got shot.”

“It'll heal!”

“That makes it so much better, real classy, China.”

“Why do you even care about it?”

“Why do you care about what I think?”

 _He got me there._ Kagura cursed silently. She opened her mouth to cite their rivalry and respect and yadda yadda yadda but replaying it in her head unconvinced even her. The coolness in his blue-grey eyes amazed her in an unnatural way. They were hellbent on an answer but patient around the corners enough to fool Kagura into believing his gentleness.

She blamed the tightness in her chest for aggravating her senses.

“I don't know yet,” she conceded, throwing up her hands in the air as if she gave up a part of her she never wanted him to see. Or maybe that was just her bruised ego, sorting them out. “Your turn.”

“I'm sorry I was harsh.”

 ...Was the world ending via an apology from the Prince of sadists? Not by an amanto invasion or by fire, but through Okita Sougo’s candidness?

Strangely enough, watching the conflict cross his face, her chest warmed even more. Now she was sure.

He ran a hand through his hair. Over and over. In softer notes she never thought were possible, Okita turned away from her. “But why're you so quick to think I wouldn’t care at all? Are you just that thick-headed?” His stupid hand clung to his hair. Tangling and untangling like a regular routine.

“I know now.”

It taunted her until Kagura couldn't resist reaching out his restlessness and calming his embarrassment with a caress of her own. Her hand pulled the hand from his increasingly tangled locks, Kagura reveling in the jolt that traveled up Okita’s eyes. Lost, troubled, warm red. The same pair of eyes that assured her. Considered her his equal. Protected.

This was unreal; this wasn’t the sadist. He wasn't the vulnerable boy who stared into a girl’s eyes waiting for something he thinks will never come.

But in this bubble of time, anything became possible.

Soyo and her words from their hangout earlier resurfaced. _“He's in it deep for you, for sure. It's scary.”_

“You're quieter than normal,” she observed.

He shrugged and made a half-hearted point to glare at her grip on him. She registered how firm her fingers wrapped around his. “Maybe you haven't been looking in the right places. Let go.”

“What, are you that affected by me?”

“Don't get ahead of yourself.”

She felt him twitch but he didn't draw back. Time to test the waters with him. She’d go crazy if she didn’t. “Soyo told me something funny once. She said you liked me.”

And a part of her wanted it to be true. Maybe confirmation would still my stupid chest, Kagura reasoned.

“Am I supposed to be attracted to wild boars now?” he deadpanned, shattering her concentration.

“I’ll end you right here and now, sadist, and you'll never know any other future we could have fucking had if you took this seriously.”

That gave him momentous pause. “And...if I did? Like you.”

His breathing, so much steadier than hers, scattered her brain’s thoughts and the heart’s blood flow. She released him.

This is for real. Real real real real life. Not a soap opera or romantic sitcom that played on the television every Wednesday and Sunday.

Kagura cursed and threw her meanest glare. It did nothing to faze Okita’s sensitive resolve, his asking look. “You're an idiot and I hate you–do I have to spell it out?”

It hurt her pride to admit but the softness of his features from the corners of his mouth to the curve of his brow pried her open too easily. Exposed her.  Cracked her. Left her vulnerable.

She thought she could be the one to spark the change but now...Kagura didn't know what it meant.

Okita’s uncharacteristic quiet riled her to no end. “What?” She spat out, finding immense interest in the workings of her umbrella’s handle.

“Well, I’m waiting for your holier-than-thou ass to spell it out for me.”

Now her umbrella was really interesting. With practiced ease, Kagura swung the metal and paper weapon up, until it evened itself against his forehead. When it became clear to him that was all she had to say–could say, without stuttering or any of that shoujo crap on TV–Okita sighed. A knowing but ‘I-so-saw-this-coming’ sigh.

“How does a good spar tonight sound? Maybe there’s a buffet open nearby,” At Kagura’s head tilt, he clarified. “I guess there’d be no choice in going there, having empty stomachs and all.”

“Wha?”

“Obviously, I’m asking you out on a date. Of course, our lovely rivalry comes first before that.” The airy diction if his words did nothing to sequester his intent gaze. All on her. “You game?”

* * *

 When Kagura visited Soyo a few afternoons later, a new room, considering the old one was torn to bits by patriots, Kagura couldn’t resist gushing about the buffet.  The food–the food, she kept justifying–was amazing.

She threw her arms up, too buzzed with incredulity to notice the spilled sencha against the dark wood. “He actually paid for everything I ate. Soyo, I didn’t know he was capable of any sort of respect.”

“That’s what respect means in your book?” Despite her words, Soyo laughed, buoyant. “Did you enjoy your time with him to do it again?”

“Well, the chicken was a little burnt and the rice wasn’t sticky enough there…” Kagura flinched at Soyo’s intense stare and decided on a cough.“But yeah. Someone’s gotta keep that sadist in check.”

She meant every word and more. A leftover butterfly fluttered in her stomach, reminiscing the adrenaline that wouldn't quit racing her heart last night. Alive and right seemed the only correct and close to honest adjectives Kagura could describe the implications of sharing dinner with him of all people.

Kagura peered down at the aromatic liquid on the table. Life certainly had unexpected plot twists. Wherever life was taking her with this, she didn't know, but she sure was grateful.

Soyo, raising a brow, smirked as she lowered her voice for only her friend to hear. “His pants included?”

As she flagged a servant down for a napkin, Kagura ignored her.

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> I wrote this in 2016 and I'm only cleaning it up and posting it now, wow–we can all thank my Google Docs folder. Feel free to let me know what you thought of it!


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